Gates Package — page 934

w I'd put the cost of running the GERM team in the neighborhood of $1 billion a year to cover salaries for 2,000 to 3,000 people plus equipment, travel, and other expenses. To put that number in perspective: $1 billion a year would be less than one one-thousandth of the world's annual spending on defense.10 Given that it would be an insurance policy against a tragedy that costs the world trillions of dollars--as COVID has--and also drive down the human and financial burden caused by other diseases, a billion dollars a year would be a bargain.* Don't think of this spending as charity or even traditional development assistance. Just like defense spending, it would be part every nation's responsibility to ensure the safety and security of its citizens. The GERM team is essential to running a proper monitor-and-respond system, I will come back to it repeatedly in the coming chapters. You'll see the crucial role it will play in every aspect of pandemic prevention: disease surveillance, coordinating the immediate response, advising on the research agenda, and running tests of systems to find its weak spots. Let's turn first to the problem of how you detect an outbreak to begin with. * This organization should not be paid for by private citizens. It needs to be accountable to the public and have authority from the WHO.